This is a prototype illustration by artist ech0-73. This is a commission piece for this fanfiction. She is currently working to color and finalize it.

Here is some context of this scene, which takes place in Chapter 10:

Don leaned a few inches forward, rested his elbows on her desk, then laid his chin on his hands. A salesman's technique. Leaning the right amount forward would command the listener to consider the speaker's words.

"Listen Dean Harescrabble, you pegged me down. Yes, I was a fool in mai early youth. Droppin' out was a mistake. But for now, I implore you to see if I have da' spark of potential that ya' always look for. Perhaps in those thirty years, I have grown up enough to handle the Scaring field." He lowered the pitch of his typically animated voice into something graver, not too much to seem that he was over-adjusting himself, but enough to have her take him more seriously.

The way her brows rose were deliberate, intimidating yet fascinating. Her eyes were neither disapproving nor agreeable, yet it carried some essence of cold amusement and resolve.

Don realized that she had figured his calculated gesture.

And she respected that subtle endeavor.

She craned inches forward to scrutinize Don. The eyes of the instructor and the salesman met like a match, and they exchanged character studies as taught by their expertise's training. The record-breaking Scarer inspected Don for a capable Scarer. Meanwhile, Don studied the headmistress like a new customer, inferring her preferences based on the mannerisms and demeanor. In her stone face, he gathered that the her taste tended to be narrow, precise, and of high expectations.

And Don knew that his task would be to inspire the Dean to expand and open her judgments.